​Just listening to the excitement and passion of Mary Adams telling me about The Sanctuary at Red Bell Run had me huffing to catch my breath. Bouncing around in her “Kawasaki Mule” checking out each of the “group homes” spread over 200 acres was a love, understanding, and patience. Mary knows each of the equines in her care and there are a lot of them. Make that a LOT of them – 125 as of the day of my visit. 
 
Each equine has an individualized health plan. A veterinarian from Tryon Equine Hospital comes out every week to make regular house calls and is “on call” for any issue whenever needed. This is not an adoption agency. While some are here on request of other rescue groups on a temporary basis, most of these beautiful animals are here for life no matter what health and emotional issues they face. They run the gamut including donkeys, miniature horses, hinnies, mini-mules, and larger horses and mules including three mammoth mules. They live in “group homes” depending on their needs and equine type. 

​Most equines are placed with Red Bell Run by other equine welfare organizations with some coming via law enforcement agencies. Some have been abused, some have been saved from feedlot slaughter, some have come from hoarding situations, many are elderly and weren’t wanted anymore. But all have come to the right place. They are lucky to have found Mary and her dedicated crew at The Sanctuary at Red Bell Run.
 
The Sanctuary at Red Bell is on the property of what was once an orchard run by the Mise family in the Chesnee Road area of Green Creek. Forty acres of the property are still used as a working vineyard with the grapes being sold to area wineries including Biltmore Estate. Mary says it was just lucky that she found this property at the right time. She was running an equine rescue in Winter Haven, Florida but knew she wanted a place with less brutal weather. When she was traveling the region looking for something elsewhere, she passed the for-sale sign for this acreage and in two weeks the property was hers. She had a master plan to start the sanctuary and build it up slowly moving horses up from Florida as the new facilities were readied. But Hurricane Irma in 2017 changed those plans. With the storm taking aim there wasn’t time to wait for every single barn, paddock, and run-in shed to be built. Within three days the remaining 56 equines were moved up to their new home in the North Carolina Foothills. 

It was exactly one year ago today when I posted my first “real” story as Foothills Faces. That was the story about Martha’s Amish Bakery and it was a perfect choice for my start. So today is my lucky day that the first anniversary of this blog and donut day at the bakery ended up being the same!
 
By the time you read this, the donuts might be gone. It’s a sellout every Saturday and Saturday is the only day they make their incredible melt-in-your-mouth treats.
 
Even though the bakery had been going since 2014, the name change just happened about the same time I went in looking for my first story. While I don’t necessarily plan to revisit each of my past stories as this next year progresses, I wanted to stop by the bakery just to check in. My sharing their story helped get flour sack full of new blog followers.